Vermillion
by ArbitrarilyStupid
Summary: She could feel it. The hole in her chest, steaming from the chill in the air and bubbling from the sharp poison of Sasori's special brand of punishment. He aches for the first time in years and she watches as her fingertips pass through faces like water. AU.


**Summary: She could feel it. The hole in her chest, steaming from the chill in the air and bubbling from the sharp poison of Sasori's special brand of punishment. He aches for the first time in years and she watches as her fingertips pass through faces like water. AU.**

 **1/2/17**

 **ArbitrarilySupid**

 **Chapter 1: Carmine**

She could feel it.

The hole in her chest, steaming from the chill in the air and bubbling from the sharp poison of Sasori's special brand of punishment. Could feel that deadly sword from its first entrance into her body, the slide of it through flesh and tissue and tendon, the moment when it glided through her right aorta and then shoved its way through bone, severing her spine and forcing its way out of her back.

Sasori is startlingly close, lips curled back in a fierce snarl, baring gleaming teeth and his free hand is latched onto her shoulder, fingers curled into claws.

He looks monstrous.

She faintly notices his eyes are the color of sand that's been wet with blood. How fitting. She is sure that he is aware of the fact, he's too vain not to.

It's disgustingly poetic.

How lame.

She wants to tell him as much but all she can manage at the moment is a faint twitch of the lips that allows a dribble of blood to press through. It slides its way down her chin and drips to the ground, dark and rich and excessively fierce. Her eyes focus on it. The sight of her own blood is oddly mesmerizing.

Sasori too had traced its descent and leans back, the crazed snarl morphing into something more subdued.

More dangerous in her opinion.

She notes that he is equally captivated by the steady stream of blood. The color red is something of a common interest between them it seems.

If she makes it out of this encounter she swears to never wear the color again.

He shifts closer and she jerks back sharply. The stream of red coming out of her mouth bubbles and falls faster.

She coughs wetly.

His eyes trace a path from the puddle of her blood on the ground, past the steadily seeping wounds on her muscled thighs, to the bruised and laceration riddled arm that had only minutes prior, splintered his chest cavity open in a shower of lacquered wood shards and whose powerful fingers now curled around his heart.

It did not hurt, he had long gotten rid of that particular sensation, but it ached. Ached liked he would imagine drowning would, a burning, wild sensation that slowly began to crush you from the inside out.

Her fingers flexed.

He ached in time.

He wondered if this is where it would end. Wondered if Chiyo would even attempt to push for funeral services for him. He doubted it. Defeated by a little girl and the old bag wasn't even there to witness it. Witness him, his greatest creations, his legacy. Her legacy. He wondered if her old bones ached like his, burned like his did.

He never did have the chance to ask.

His eyes take in the kunoichi with her ridiculous hair and that red outfit. A bold color for a shinobi to wear, decidedly dangerous. She is decidedly dangerous however, their fierce one-on-one will always be in his thoughts should he survive this. He decides that red is her color, it suits her, all firey passion and whirlwind movement.

He aches again.

Her hand refused to do more than twitch, fingers spasmodically drumming against Sasori's heart. She wanted to crush it. Wanted to with every wheezing breath she took that forced more of her blood out of her cuts, the hole in her chest. Needed to.

Because she was going to die.

Her wounds were oozing, her heart and spinal cord had been shredded, and yet she felt nothing. Numb.

She had no limbs, no feet, no hands, she was a consciousness who could only hear the death rattle of her own body failing. But she needed to deal the final blow. She needed to kill him. Because if she didn't then he was one more person that could still threaten everything. Everything she fought for, bleed for.

Everything she believed in.

It took way too fucking long for her to decide what she believed in for her to idly sit by while it's very fragile existence was being hunted. She needed to kill him, was sure of it like she was sure of the acrid taste of blood and smoke on her tongue. She had worked hard for mastery over her body. Had forcibly taken herself apart and built herself up again into something new, something deserving of respect, something dangerous.

Yet another likeness between them. She resents it bitterly but wonders if her path could have turned out similarly had she stewed in her helplessness, her resentment towards those who believed her weak. Unworthy.

It's a terrifying thought.

Her body betrays her now, the strength she desperately attained is gone. She can't even close her fingers and end this.

Sasori shifts and she grunts as that wicked sharp sword sinuously glides out of her own chest, coated in her and glimmering with could only be some of his poison. The sword clatters out of his hand.

He releases her shoulder.

She is sure there are bruises where his fingers dug into her back.

Without the weight of him she begins to fall, hand sliding free of his chest cavity with finality as her body folds in on itself to crash onto her knees. She sways unsteadily on her knees, suspended for a moment in time, before beginning to free fall forward, face about to meet her blood in the sand, until an unnaturally pale arm shoots out and grasps at her shirt, holding her upright.

Sasori lowers himself to her eye level. Her vision is decidedly hazy now. She vaguely thinks that she will bleed out soon. Probably.

He tilts his head, bird like, predatory.

She wants to shave his pretty, synthetic skin off.

When he speaks, his voice is smooth and polished. Unaffected. It's a contrast to the burning in his eyes.

"You're going to die soon." His fingers tighten on her shirt. "I imagine you have minutes. My poison is burning a path through your body, devouring you from the inside. My sword pierced your heart. Which one will get you in the end I wonder? I would hope that it would be my poison but even I can respect the probability of you bleeding out first. Poetic isn't it? I pierced your heart as you held mine."

Her eyes droop, body beginning to slump.

He shifts closer, lips brushing her ear.

" Nature is fierce and unpredictable but my art withstands its demands, death will never collect me. He can't. Certainly there is ultimate beauty in that. Defying nature itself."

She wants to tell him that he's wrong, that it's a parody of life. That no one can live forever. Death finds all, collects all. He can't escape that, no matter how he attempts to. But her mind is clogged with slow moving mercury and her eyes no longer seem to want to stay open.

Pink lashes flutter closed over emeralds.

She dimly registers the sound of explosions and shouting. They sound close. She should be worried about this. She knows she needs to be. But she is tired. So tired.

Sasori whispers to her through the fog.

"Sacrifice leads to greater things in this world. Wouldn't you like to be great little girl?"

The mercury in her brain ceases to drip.

 **Hello I hope that you enjoyed the first chapter of Vermillion. Feel free to leave any questions, comments or concerns in a review. I have never written Naruto fiction before so tell me how I did. I hope to see you next chapter.**

 **Chapter 2: She watches as they mourn. He shivers as his fingers brush the splintered wood of his chest.**


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